This invention relates to a bag maker-packaging machine of the type adapted to form bags continuously from an elongated web of a bag-forming material.
Requirements by consumers are becoming complex. For potato chips, for example, not only different flavors such as salted, cheese-flavored, onion-flavored and vinegar-flavored kinds must be made available, but different kinds with different strengths of flavoring are also required. From the point of view of the manufacturer, this means that bag-forming materials with different designs and/or measurements must be used for different kinds of products, and that formers of different shapes and sizes must be used to form bags from these materials. As a result, handling and management of these bag-forming materials and formers become even more complicated and cumbersome.
When products of different kinds look alike such as potato chips which are flavored differently, there is an increased probability of committing an error of using a wrong kind of bag-forming material to package a given kind of products. When the sizes of different formers are nearly alike such as 5 inches and 51/4 inches, there is also an increased probability of committing an error of installing a wrong former and ending up by producing a large quantity of defective products.
Depending on the differences in the size of the former and the manner of effecting the longitudinal sealing of the bag-forming material, furthermore, it is necessary to displace the bag-forming material in the transverse direction. When the packaging machine is prepared for products specified according to a given production schedule, product codes corresponding to the specified product kinds must be looked up in an item list, but inexperienced operators are likely to waste time in the search for specified entries and to commit input errors.
In view of the problems described above, the present inventor disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication Tokkai 6-32325 an apparatus capable of automatically selecting an appropriate former and bag-forming material in response to inputted data on a specified product and adapted to adjust the position of the bag-forming material in the transverse direction by displacing a turn bar or its position relative to the selected former by moving a guide roller in a forward-backward direction.
This apparatus is advantageous in that a former and a bag-forming material can be automatically selected on the basis of inputted data. When new products are to be packaged with this apparatus, however, new data corresponding to them must be inputted each time.